The Plan

“No, don’t do it man” . Srinivas scolded me. He was my colleague and a good friend.

“I must tell her”. I was adamant, due to a sudden need for righteous.

“If you want to propose to Sushma , go ahead. But why do you have to tell her about Moushika? You are not in a relationship with her. You were just talking to her on the phone for 2-3 months and going to stop that anyway after you propose to Sushma”

“I see absolutely no reason to tell Sushma about another girl while proposing to her for the first time”. Srinivas said with a look of bewilderment, he could not understand why I planning to ruin a relationship even before it started.

It was true. I wasn’t cheating on Sushma or doing something that I will regret later in life. I met Moushika in an Art of Living class, she was a very nice person. We sat next to each other for the 4 day course and became friendly enough to exchange numbers.

I would call her sometimes and have friendly conversations. Later on I became bold enough to flirt with her over the phone. But it was going nowhere, I wanted a relationship and get married, she was just interested in having friendly conversations over the phone and laugh at my jokes.

That was it.

But somehow I felt and believed that any proposal to Sushma should eventually lead to marriage and I wanted to be completely honest to my future wife!

“No, I’m going to propose to her today and tell her about the other girl”, I repeated my decision firmly to Srinivas, determined to cleanse my past deeds.

Srinivas was visibly annoyed and realized he could not help avert a disaster.

OK, If you are willing to dig your own grave and bury yourself, go ahead!

The proposal

That evening, I asked Sushma to meet at the coffee shop within our office campus. We talked over the phone just 4 times before that and she agreed to meet me expecting a friendly chat.

The minor details of our chat are a blur to me now, maybe because that moment was so terrifying, I was going to propose to the most important person in my life (at that time) and knew that I would ruin it with my new-found honesty.

and so it happened…

The conversation started in a casual tone and I tried to say it many times, the 3 words would almost come out and then I would lose my nerve just to continue blabbering about random stuff. This cycle would repeat and at that time it felt as if I tried saying it a 100 times and chickened out every single time. Finally, I could not hold them any more , I mentioned our recent conversations late into the night over the phone and looked straight into her eyes and said

I like you

There I finally said it. The 3 words to show that you are a cool and confident guy, but secretly meant that I was desperately in love with her and hoped she would feel the same.

But, she did not feel the same way, and to her, we were just friends. That was it.

Everything came crashing down, I’m sitting in front of this beautiful girl who was one of the nicest persons and I could NOT be with her. However, I expected this reply and knew this was true. Now, all the years of frustration and lack of courage to ask a girl out came crashing to me. Yes. I knew it! I would always be the friendly guy to all the girls and never be the man enough to attract them. This felt like someone sucker punched my ego.

Guess where this situation was heading? I was on the verge of creating history for the worst proposal ever.

The disaster

“I know that you do not feel the same way. You assumed we became good friends because of our deep and long conversations” I was trying to save face by showing off my intuitiveness to read her mind. She was silent. I should have stopped than, but my ego was hurt. So, I rambled on.

“It’s fine, I understand that you don’t have those kind of feelings for me”. I was trying to act casual even while drowning in self-pity.

She looked apologetic. I was getting angry.

“It’s okay Sushma. I knew this would happen. But I didn’t want to just waste our time by continuing this so-called friendship, while secretly hoping to move away from the friend zone. So, I preferred being straight forward”

I was angry now, it was finishing before it even started. Temporary insanity took over and I vented out in frustration,”Look, I’ll make it easy for you to say NO. I’ve actually been talking to another girl for a while” . I said those words slowly and with coldness. She was shocked. I guess she didn’t expect me to be an ass!

Then I stood up and walked away leaving her there without even a goodbye.

I was mad now and could not believe what happened. The situation was bad before and now it was a disaster.

On the drive home, I could not contain my anger or sorrow and called up Srinivas.

“It’s all over man”

“Why? What happened? What did you do?”

“I proposed to her but she was not ready. I got mad and said that I will make it easy for her to reject me. Then I told her about the other girl and before she could respond, I walked away”